The expression natural evil doesn’t really sit right with me, because the concept of evil presupposes an agent causing it.
According to your philosophy, an agent did cause it - God! God chose to create a world containing abundant physical and moral evil, because the existence of decision-making beings is the best thing ever, and the existence of physical and moral evil is a necessary side effect of that.
the existence of decision-making beings is the best thing ever
I didn’t say it’s the best thing ever. Why are you misrepresenting what I said?
Effects caused by natural laws aren’t “caused by God”. They are caused by natural laws. It’s not the same thing. God did create natural laws, but they serve a number of good purposes as I began to outline above.
Exaggerating it only a little, out of exasperation at its inanity.
If God thinks as you described, then the best of humans are more ethical than God, because they wouldn’t set in motion thousands of years of wars and famine, and millions of years of ruthless natural selection, for the sake of—I don’t even know what. The eventual existence of “meaningfully moral agents”?
All these theodical problems arise for well-understood reasons—you insist on believing, despite appearances, that God is both all-powerful and good. Maybe you’d be better off with some process metaphysics in which good is scarcely present at the beginning, but can improve with time. I’m not particularly endorsing it, there are numerous metaphysical possibilities, but at least it would make more sense.
According to your philosophy, an agent did cause it - God! God chose to create a world containing abundant physical and moral evil, because the existence of decision-making beings is the best thing ever, and the existence of physical and moral evil is a necessary side effect of that.
I didn’t say it’s the best thing ever. Why are you misrepresenting what I said?
Effects caused by natural laws aren’t “caused by God”. They are caused by natural laws. It’s not the same thing. God did create natural laws, but they serve a number of good purposes as I began to outline above.
Exaggerating it only a little, out of exasperation at its inanity.
If God thinks as you described, then the best of humans are more ethical than God, because they wouldn’t set in motion thousands of years of wars and famine, and millions of years of ruthless natural selection, for the sake of—I don’t even know what. The eventual existence of “meaningfully moral agents”?
All these theodical problems arise for well-understood reasons—you insist on believing, despite appearances, that God is both all-powerful and good. Maybe you’d be better off with some process metaphysics in which good is scarcely present at the beginning, but can improve with time. I’m not particularly endorsing it, there are numerous metaphysical possibilities, but at least it would make more sense.